VOICES OF TRUTH GUEST SPEAKS OUT AGAINST FEDERAL RECOGNITION
Attorney Rebecca Tsosie, a member of the Yaqui tribe from southern Arizona and recent guest on Voices Of Truth - One-On-One With Hawai`i's Future, issued a memo recently after speaking at the Native Hawaiian Bar Association Conference on "The Rights Of Native Hawaiians To Self-Determination."
Here, in part, is what she had to say -
"Self-determination means that the indigenous people have the autonomy to declare their own identity and their political status.
"If another Nation maintains the right to define who is a Native Hawaiian and the right to form a government for them, is that 'self-determination?'
"This bill grants the Hawaiian people the right to have the U.S. define them and then recognize the government it has defined.
"This bill preserves 'existing entitlements' as they are provided for under the operative appropriations law (no guarantees) but says that Hawaiians are not entitled to anything more than they currently have unless the U.S. and the state of Hawai`i agree to that.
"Most importantly, the bill extinguishes any legal claims for land or resources and leaves any future rights to land and resources purely to 'negotiation' with no legal recourse to file a claim for lack of good faith negotiation.
"There will be some nominal support from a very small and new Office within Interior that has the legal mandate to 'help' Native Hawaiians if it can convince all the agencies and the state that they deserve help."
